US. Department of Justice
Office of the Deputy Attorney General
Office of the Deputy Attorney General 950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
Room 4113, RFK Main Justice Bldg.
Washington, D.C. 20530
July 22, 2019
Robert S. Mueller, III
Washington, D.C.
By email
Dear Mr. Mueller:
I write in response to your July 10, 2019 letter concerning the testimonial
subpoenas you
received from the House Judiciary Committee (HJC) and House Permanent Select
Committee on
Intelligence (HPSCI). Your letter requests that the Department provide you
with guidance
concerning privilege or other legal bars applicable to potential testimony
in connection with
those subpoenas.
On May29, 2019, with the Departments authorization, you made a public
statement
about your work as Special Counsel. In that statement, you addressed a
possible appearance
before Congress, saying that you hope and expect this to be the only time I
will speak to you in
this matter. You also stated that if you testify before Congress, any
testimony from this
office would not go beyond our report. It contains findings and analysis,
and the reasons for the . -
decisions we made. We chose those words carefully, and the work speaks for
itself. The report
is my testimony. I would not provide information beyond that which is
already public in any
appearance before Congress.
I understand that subsequently, you advised the committees that
you do not wish to testify concerning your work as Special Counsel, given
that you would not
add anything beyond what you already said in the now-public report and your
public statement.
As the Attorney General has repeatedly stated, the decision to testify
before Congress is
yours to make in this case, but the Department agrees with your stated
position that your
testimony should be unnecessary under the circumstances.
The Department generally does not
permit prosecutors such as you to appear and testify before Congress
regarding their
investigative and prosecutorial activity. In addition, the Department
already has taken
extraordinary steps to make almost your entire report, as well as a
substantial volume of your
underlying investigative material, available to the committees. Should you
testify, the
Department understands that testimony regarding the work of the Special
Counsels Office will
be governed by the terms you outlined on May 29 specifically, that the
information you discuss
during your testimony appears in, and does not go beyond, the public
version of your March
22, 2019 report to the Attorney General or your May 29 public statement.
Please note that there should be no testimony concerning the redacted
portions of the
public version of your report, which may not be disclosed because of
applicable laws, court rules
and orders(including Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)), or
longstanding Department
policies. As you know, the U.S. v. Stone and U.S. v. Concord cases remain
pending, and local court rules and specific orders issued in those cases
substantially restrict the Departments ability
to make public statements about those cases.
In addition, it is the Departments longstanding
policy not to discuss the conduct of uncharged third-parties. See Justice
Manual § 9-27.760.
Established Department policy also precludes any comment on the facts
developed and legal
conclusions by the Special Counsels Office with respect to uncharged
individuals, other than
information contained within the portions of your report that already have
been made public.
Finally, any testimony must remain within the boundaries of your public
report because
matters within the scope of your investigation were covered by executive
privilege, including
information protected by law enforcement, deliberative process, attorney
work product, and
presidential communications privileges. These privileges would include
discussion about
investigative steps or decisions made during your investigation not
otherwise described in the
public version of your report. Consistent with standard practice, Department
witnesses should
decline to address potentially privileged matters, thus affording the
Department the full
opportunity at a later date to consider particular questions and possible
accommodations that
may fulfill the committees legitimate need for information while protecting
Executive Branch
confidentiality interests.
I trust this information is helpful. Please do not hesitate to contact me if
you wish to
further discuss these issues.
Associate Deputy Attorney General
Sincerely,
A_
Bradley Weihsheimer
Associate Deputy Attorney General
EM -> { Trump for 2020 }
On the 49th Parallel
Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja and Dr. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda is in
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"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni, Ssabassajja na Dk. Kiiza Besigye, Uganda ni
katika machafuko"
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